"Largest ever" Danish North Sea investment signed off

A US$3.36 billion (DKK21 billion) investment into a redevelopment of the Tyra gas field on the Danish Continental Shelf has been approved by the Danish Underground Consortium (DUC), led by Maersk Oil.

The move will see the largest oil and gas project investment ever made in the Danish North Sea and will rejuvenate the Tyra field - Denmark's largest gas field. Following the investment, Tyra will operate for at least another 25 years, and secure crucial Danish gas infrastructure (the facility processes some 90% of Danish gas production), says Maersk Oil.

The Tyra field, in Blocks 5504/11 and 12, 225km west of Esbjerg, Denmark, requires redevelopment due to subsidence of the chalk reservoir which has led to the existing platforms sinking by around 5m over the last 30 years. This has reduced the gap between the sea and the platform decks.

The cash will be spent on modifying existing facilities and building new facilities at a cost of about $2.72 billion, (DKK17 billion), plus removing and and decommissioning some existing facilities, at a cost of about $640 million (DKK4 billion).

Today the Tyra field consists of two main centres; Tyra East and Tyra West. Tied into the centre are five unmanned satellites; Tyra Southeast, Harald, Valdemar, Svend and Roar.

Under the investment project, the two existing gas processing and accommodation platforms on Tyra East and Tyra West will be replaced by one new processing platform and one new accommodation platform. The four wellhead platforms and two riser platforms will have their jackets extended by 10m. The current topsides will be replaced by new topsides. The unmanned satellite platforms in the area have not been affected by subsidence and will therefore not be redeveloped.

Tyra, which was discovered in 1968 and started production in 1984, will be shut-in, from November 2019, for the work to be done. Production is expected to restart in July 2022.

The redeveloped Tyra, which covers 615.6sq km, is expected to produce about 60,000 boe/d at peak, and it is estimated that the redevelopment can enable the production of more than 200 MMboe. About two thirds of the production is expected to be gas and one third oil.

Maersk Oil CEO Gretchen Watkins, said: “The redevelopment of Tyra is the largest investment carried out in the Danish North Sea, and when completed in 2022, production from the Tyra field itself has the potential to cover Danish gas consumption for a decade.”

In early 2016, Maersk Oil had warned that production on the Tyra field would have to shut down by the end of 2018, unless conditions for investing in repairing and upgrading the infrastructure on the field were improved.

Today's investment announcement follows the Danish Parliament’s approval to implement legislation to secure the investment, namely, tax reductions on investments in oil and gas extraction from the North Sea in the period 2017-2025.

Maersk Oil says that, through new development projects and third party tie-ins, the redevelopment of Tyra could also be a catalyst for extending the life of the Danish North Sea – not just for Maersk Oil and the DUC, but also for Denmark.

The Tyra field is operated by Maersk Oil on behalf of the DUC, a partnership between A.P. Moller – Maersk (31.2%), Shell (36.8%), Nordsøfonden (20%) and Chevron (12%).